What’s Your Thing? Passions and Hobbies
Posted on 05. Jan, 2010 by Laura-Jane - Whimfield in Inspirations, Life Dream, Personal
I grew up in a musical household. My mother is a professional violinist who revels in playing music. She has played the violin since she was five years old, and it’s her thing. She loves to play. I think she would say that when she is playing her violin she “blisses out.” I think I may have even heard her echo these words on more than one occasion: “I love to practice my violin.”
If you’ve ever been an unwilling music student, you might be aware that it is not everyone who can say, “I love to practice my instrument.” But my mother has been playing professionally for decades, and playing the violin is still her thing.
As the daughter of a professional musician, I grew up playing the cello. I started playing at the age of four, and I even faked my way through a season with the Vancouver Island Symphony. I enjoyed playing the cello, but it was not my thing. Unlike my mother, I did not love to practice my cello–even though I tried to will the cello to be my thing. Intellectually I wanted to be a glamorous cellist, but I did not have the will for it. It didn’t flow. I couldn’t bliss out playing the cello the way my mom could bliss out playing her violin. Playing music wasn’t my thing.
As a kid I remember genuinely wondering what was wrong with me. Why could my mother play for hours but for me it felt so forced? Why wasn’t I like her? I didn’t understand why, but I realized that we weren’t the same. My mother is a kind, kindred, warm person and there was no ill-will over my lack of dedication or drive when it came to the cello. I think she realized that it wasn’t my thing, and by the age of fourteen I was a spent cellist.
I entered teenage-hood, and by the time that I emerged out the other side I had found my thing.
I never decided that blogging and writing and communicating with you would be my thing. It just happened. It was natural. Once I started in 2001 I just couldn’t stop. This is my thing.
This blank box in which I am typing allows me to read, write, share. To connect with you. I can tell you a thousand secrets. I can paint a picture with my fingers. I can create something out of nothing. All this from a keyboard and a blank box in which I can type.
In this blank box I can go in any direction. This is my creative outlet. This is where I feel that I am the most me.
One of the greatest rushes of joy in my life is when I have an idea that I want to write about or I receive an email or a comment in which someone divulges that my words have touched them.
Like any person with a thing that is creative, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Ideas just hit me. Of course, ideas don’t come as often as I like, but, sometimes, somewhere inside my brain an idea is born, and then I find myself writing inside this little white box. Once I’ve got an idea, I go into a state of what can best be described as flow. Once I’ve got that idea it’s all a blur. Everything just flows. There’s no push. There’s no friction. The words just pour out of me so easily. It is a pleasure.
I have finally found the equivalent to my mother playing her violin in the warm living room night after night after night. It’s me, writing to you, night after night. I’m happy that my mother has her thing and I have mine.
To anyone who is reading this, I hope you realize that you’re a big part of my thing. And I hope you’ve found your thing, too.
Kim
Jan 5th, 2010
Wow – even if music isn’t in your soul, I am impressed!
I’m the opposite – I desperately want to master an instrument (I’ve taken lessons in the piano, guitar and am eyeing up a violin as we speak) and I’m just not that good!
How do you ‘fake’ a season with the symphony – you are so funny. I’m sure that you are really very good.
And you have found your niche, which is writing. Keep it up, Laura-Jane – your legion of fans eagerly awaits each post!
Bradley
Jan 5th, 2010
Anyone who finds their passion in life has, in a way, discovered their internal Energizer bunny!
You can still appreciate music and other matters in life without being fully engaged. You wrote these thoughts with such beauty and inspiration.
brenna
Jan 5th, 2010
LJ, lovely post. Also, this pic of you is absolutely amazing. You should blow it up and frame it! Seriously!
Natasha Fondren
Jan 5th, 2010
I’ve been reading your blog for months, now, but I’m not sure I’ve commented. (Sorry!) I love this post. I’m a (was?) pianist. I loved it, and it was SO my identity. I went to music school, and taught for fifteen years.
But during the past ten, writing has gradually taken over. I love and miss the piano (not the student’s parents, for sure), but just this summer I packed up in a camper, set out to live on the road, and just write.
And between the two, I can definitely say that for piano, motivation was always a manual thing. Even though I loved practicing for hours a day… it wasn’t like writing. Although motivating myself to write, somedays, isn’t easy… often it is. It’s different. It’s just… always there. I don’t have to manufacture it.
Thanks for the great blog! It’s been inspiring to me on my journey this year!
Brianne W
Jan 5th, 2010
Last night i was reading up on some chinese astrology (which i do find quite interesting). According to the astrology I am a Taurus which is an Earth sign and I am born under the year of the Earth Dragon. In other words, so it says, I am very grounded and attached to nature. Whether or not that stuff is for real that is exactly who i am, that is my thing. I love all things nature, plants, animals, what have you. I am a creative, hands on person but even in my drawing, photos or graphic design i can never get past plants and animals or nature scenes. I went to school for agriculture and have had a passion for horses for as long as i can remember. I could never see my life without a cat or dog in my household. Even with all responsibily involved they are my serenity, my calm. I could spend every minute of every day working with animals of any kind (dog, cat, horse, pig whatever) and i would never have a bad day. So my thing isn’t one thing necessarily but it definatly is me. It is definatly a wonderful thing when you find out what truely makes you happy.
george
Jan 5th, 2010
I’m glad very you write, and one idea I still keep having is how you could write about the island from an outsider piont of veiw.
I like to the humorous side of things as well as letting every one know about the island.
George
George
Jan 5th, 2010
And I agree with the other post the picture is amazing.
Toni
Jan 6th, 2010
I found my thing about 6.5 years ago, then again 4 years ago. I call it ‘The Mommy’. haha!!
Your moms going to be so glad and proud that you wrote about her :)
And as for the picture, it is gorgeous, is it semi-new, You have brown hair in it.
xo
Laura-Jane - Whimfield
Jan 6th, 2010
It is OLD. Don’t ask me *how* old. :)
Alright, alright, I know how old it is–about five years old! I really need some new glamour shots. (And more glamour in general.)
I don’t have a cello here. My Mom is keeping it for me at her house because we didn’t want to move it across the country–it would have gotten frozen during our trip across Canada in December.
Alexandra Highcrest
Jan 6th, 2010
Well said. Just don’t become a journalist. I did, and my thing was very quickly turned into either a sword or a hammer even though all I ever wanted to do was tell stories. I’ve since recaptured my thing and I’m a story teller again.
ciao
Freda
Jan 6th, 2010
We are so very glad you have found your “bliss” in the writing of a blog. You have a wonderful way with words and the talent and gift to pass it on to others. Not to mention your photography. I am very thankful.
The picture is wonderful. You look like you are so into “it”, I would call it “blissed out”.
Either way keep up the wonderful word mongering.
Amanda
Jan 6th, 2010
Thank you for your post. It was thought-provoking and I loved the idea. I too know what you mean.
Is it possible, do you think, to have many things?
When I got my first beehive a couple years ago I finally said to Marc “I know what I want to be when I grow up.” Even though, in reality, I think I was probably “growed up” already.
I always enjoy your blog. Glad it’s your bliss.
Melissa
Jan 7th, 2010
I love this post Laura-Jane! Over the past couple of years it seems I have done so much soul searching. I don’t know what exactly I have been “searching” for, but I hoped to find something. Periodically I have pondered what I am passionate about because as I looked around me it seemed *everyone* had a passion or something that they were really good at. It is only recently that I realized what my passion is and always has been – teaching. I feel so blessed to have a career that I love and look forward to each and every (well, mostly) day. Yes, I am the teacher of 7 year olds…but really I feel selfish because they teach me more than they will ever know. When I spend my days with these little people I am challenged to think of the world in a way I never have and I am challenged to present challenges to them. It is so rewarding to give them a foundation for free thinking and being good citizens and enjoying the simple pleasures of a hobby or interest.
Also, thank you for sharing your little piece of cyber space. Your words are inspirational.
Andy Collier
Jan 8th, 2010
I /think/ my thing is being dependable, being the guy that fixes things (figuratively and literally) and facilitates change and improvements in others.
When I am failing at that role it makes my life miserable, and I have felt pretty miserable at times in the last couple of years and have begun to fear the expectations of others in my role.
I still don’t know if my thing is really it or not, one of the problems I have is a keen desire to know a lot about everything, thus never being able to dip too deep into any one subject. Although in being helpful to others in a facilitation sort of way, being a jack of trades can be a good thing…
Knife making Steve
Jan 9th, 2010
I agree with you and think that a hobby can really make a difference in a person’s life. My latest hobby is making knives. The metal the wood together give knife making a very organic feel in a hobby. The designs and styles are unlimited so every hobby has its own advantages but as for me I like to make knives!
Jennie
Jan 10th, 2010
I heart your blog Laura-Jane!! Ever since I read an article about you in our local Hamilton, ON. newspaper I’ve been hooked!
Thanks!!
Jenniefir
Mom Marjorie
Jan 11th, 2010
I adore that photo of you with the shadow of the cello peg on your cheek!
But, aw, I did not know that you have “dismissed” yourself as a cello player as strongly as you let on in this article!! I felt sad …
Laura-Jane, do you remember those moments as a young girl that you blissed out while playing your cello? You had an “aha” moment once when playing a composition by Arcangelo Corelli in Junior Orchestra, and then when you were playing “Sleighride”, composed by Leroy Anderson, when you were in the Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra.
As for me – I did not know that I came across to you as a passionate violinist who practised a lot and who blissed out a lot! I don’t actually practise very much – that’s possibly partly why I am still enthusiastic, and “fresh” about it – always yearning to play more than I allow myself the time for. Though, come to think of it, I guess this means than I am “purposely” denying myself many moments of bliss! Maybe I’ll practise more, and discover again what happens when (hopefully!) I transcend the technique, and my violin, body, and mind feel as one.
But I am also really passionate about doing music research (for those that do not know me – Laura-Jane’s mom – I have two university degrees in music history). Turning the scholarly facts into literature is extremely daunting – but for me, this is the slog of a task I set for myself. When given the choice to practise, research or write, I usually choose “the research”! (this may be a cop-out, aha).
I remember decades ago, as a grad student, being in the library at Ohio State University and not being able to tear myself away from my addictive research mood one evening. Even though I could see that I was making myself late for the OSU Symphony Orchestra Concert that was starting at 8:00 PM in which I was myself playing the violin. I finally bolted out of the library stacks at 2 minutes to 8:00 and ran across the campus to Mershon Auditorium – basically late!! (the feeling of being so late was so horrible, that I seemed to have blocked out my memory of the moment I walked on stage – perhaps I snuck into my seat, sort of hoping to be invisible?!
These days, I am also working on improving my “ear” by acquiring perfect pitch – I am at the moment studing “colour hearing” (as in David Lucas Burge’s courses). I also love sharing these skills with my violin students on an ongoing basis.
By the way, a favourite piece of music that I am practising for my own pleasure at the moment is the “Chaconne” by composer Tomasso Vitali, who lived from 1663 to 1745. (Several player’s versions of this “Chaconne” are available to listen to on UTube). Plus, I am memorizing all the Celtic and gypsy tunes that my duo/trio “Starlight Reverie” will perform in a series in Nanaimo called “Random Acts.” Musicians like me who are good sight readers tend not to bother memorizing music! And it seems to me that each of these skills uses a separate part of the brain. Gosh, speaking of sight reading, I better get going on practising the tricky bits for my next Symphony Orchestra concert! And in ending, I’d like to say: Best wishes to everyone with their personal quests!
Rufus Monk
Jan 11th, 2010
Very cool post, Laura-Jane, and what a wonderful response from your Mom.
I always find myself wanting so many things to be my thing. My thing is definitely not “being focused.”
Hooray for creativity and fitting snugly (or loosely!) into a niche.
Susan Burton Charlottetown
Jan 13th, 2010
Love the picture! YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL!!!
warren
Jan 13th, 2010
I have a “thing” or two but I always wanted music to be my thing too. I took piano lessons and violin lessons and keep wondering if I will ever find an instrument I need to play. Not sure why I want music to be my thing…good thing I am not holding my breathe!
Ellie
Mar 4th, 2010
What a great post Laura-Jane. I just found your blog. I’m still looking for my “thing”, although currently I am into being a mom and homemaker, although I work outside the home too. I’d love to move to PEI, and perhaps that will be my thing. But I’m still searching…